The State of Texas: Jan. 21, 2014

RIP

On Sunday, country music legend Steve Fromholz went to that Big Songwriters Circle in the Sky. The 68-old died after a gun accidentally discharged during a hunting trip in El Dorado. Named Poet Laureate of Texas in 2007, Fromholz wrote a number of hit songs, including “I’d Have To Be Crazy” for Wille Nelson and the three-part ode to his lifelong home, “Texas Trilogy” (all three songs were later recorded by Lyle Lovett).

Video of the Day

The Internet is loving the viral clip of a Rosenberg police officer who, upon spotting a lonely ten-year-old boy playing with a football, gets out of his squad car and spends some time tossing around the pigskin. The officer’s dashcam caught all the great community engagement:

Daily Roundup

Texas Folklore — Wendy Davis’s personal “Texas success story,” is the stuff of legend. And, like with all legends, there may be a few factual discrepancies. That’s the main takeaway from Wayne Slater’s must-read piece in the Dallas Morning News. Davis has been delivering her personal biographyof overcoming obstacles on the way to success, so Slater did what any reporter should: he checked it out and found a few holes in the narrative. Now everyone’s using the piece as a Rorschach loyalty test. Unsurprisingly, Davis-haters are using the piece and its details as evidence that she is dishonest and is masterminding a brilliant scheme to destroy Texas. The Davis-loyalists have blindly attacked Slater as being part of some vast right-wing conspiracy. On the bright side, the race for governor might now turn into a mud fight so epic that it becomes the stuff of legend.

The Big Payback — Exonerated death row inmate Anthony Graves may soon be able to turn the tables on Charles Sebesta, the over-zealous procescutor who sent the innocent man to execution by withholding key evidence. On Monday, Graves announced that he’s not only asking the state bar to discipline Sebesta (thanks to a recently passed law) but may very well file criminal charges. Texas Monthly executive editor Pamela Colloff—who wrote the original story on Graves) has a great breakdown of the unfolding news. A good thing, too, since there are a couple technical, legal details that require expert ‘splainin. Justice may take her sweet time, but at least she’s headed in the right direction.

Nuclear Goldmine — The New York Times has a fascinating story that brings a whole new meaning to the “one man’s trash …” line. As old nuclear reactors have begun shutting down, they need a place to dump their atomically tainted parts. That’s where Rodney A. Baltzer’s company, in Andrews, Texas, comes in. “For 95 reactors in 29 states, Mr. Baltzer’s company is the only place that will take some categories of low-level [nuclear] waste.” Baltzer’s business report has been glowing like radioactivity since he started the company two years ago, not surprising when you’ve got the monoply on such activities. So while there may be a Texas oil boom at the moment, far-thinking entrepreneurs may want to consider going nuclear.

Windfarm Windfall — Amarillo, the smaller (actually) windy city, is breaking ground on even more windfarms. Google announced that will invest another $75 million into the technology, after its initial $200 million investment last year. According to the AP report, this new facility “should have the capacity to generate enough renewable energy to power 56,000 U.S. homes.” And even better, after the windmills stop working, they won’t have to bury the remains in Andrews.

Targeted, Caught — A McAllen couple was arrested Monday in connection to the nationwide Target store credit card fraud. They’ve “been accused of being part of a group of sophisticated credit card cloners who,” according to The Monitor, “allegedly broke into the retailer’s computer system and made off with nearly 100 million credit card numbers.” The Mexican nationals didn’t get busted after some high-tech raid. Instead, warrants popped up as they tried to cross into the U.S. Officials “later found more than 100 cloned cards hidden within the couples’ clothing.”